Her Man Gilbey

A tedious, humorless film, interspersed awkwardly with random war-time propaganda.

A posh girl falls in/out/in love with the butler, depending on his social ranking, as he moves upwards through the social classes via promotion in military rank. The audience has to suffer through an hour of "will they, won't they". You will find yourself hoping the characters will be blitzed just to put a stop to their terrible dialogue and hopeless acting.

There are many small side plots that are not resolved satisfactorily, such as an interpreters struggle with citizenship papers. random war propaganda is inserted at various points such as the scene where the aunt has a gas-mask fitting, and an awkward montage of the main character doing some very unrealistic military training.

English without Tears, also called Her Man Gilbey, a reference to My Man Godfrey, which had come out in america, eight years prior. Gilbey (Michael Wilding) is butler to the Beauclerk family. So when the family travels to Geneva, he goes along. The fun, zany Margaret Rutherford is silly Lady Beauclerk, concerned with the rights of the birds that she watches. And refuses to eat. When she delivers her speech at Geneva, it is mis-understood, and causes quite a stir at the world conference. Where spies are swirling and listening, from every country. When a girl from a foreign country asks Gilbey out on a date, the neice Joan (Penelope Ward) gets jealous. But...Gilbey joins the miliary service. This was released in 1944, but it's not stated here when it was filmed. When Joan writes in her diary, we see it's the summer of 1939, so the war hadn't really hit the fan yet... many countries were still undecided what to do if war were to break out. There's no date at the start of the film, but i guess it doesn't matter when it was actually filmed. It's good. Has a sense of adventure and fun about it. In spite of the serious subject matter. Directed by Harold French. Co-stars Claude Dauphin; he was in some biggies: Barbarella, Quiet American. Some fun tidbits in Wilding's Bio section here on imdb... not only was he mister Liz Taylor in the 1950s, but sued Hedda Hopper for saying he had a liaison with Noel Coward early in his career. He and coward had worked on two films and a tv show together.

English without Tears is a movie of surprising length, considering that its less than 90 minutes long. Perhaps it is so because the war was on in 1944 when it was released - but this is more a farce than comedy.

For such a short movie, there is a lot going on. There is the plot about the butler and one of the girls who professes her love for him. Then there is the plot about the English Instructor with whom the students cheat on their real instructor with. Then there is the farce element of mistaken manners, and confused situations.

There is even an S and M theme going on with how one of the characters treats another, and it serves as their own personal turn on.

Lillie Palmer is radiant and under used in this film. However the casting of frigid and rigid Penelope Dudley-Ward makes the heroine unsympathetic and engaging. Michael Wilding is wooden at ease and uncomfortable when he should be relaxed. It all simply doesn't work.

The most ironic line of all in the movie is "I do not understand jokes because I have no sense of humor" is said by a woman to her uniformed date at a dance, to which the gentleman retorts with "Then I will explain the joke to you".

Movies, like jokes aren't funny when they have to be explained either.

Joan is 16, and in love. The only problem - he's their butler! And while you can love the butler, you can't LOVE him.

About 5 plots seem to be going on at once here, and everything is introduced in a very roundabout way, not coming together until the final minutes. Surely the best part of the film, apart from Tom the Butler, is Brigid the translator, who adds a lot of charm and wit to the story.

Tom goes away to join the army, and comes back an Officer, and in love with Joan - who is older and has of course moved on! So what is a guy to do? She's now teaching English to foreign soldiers, half of whom have crushes on her, but Tom ain't gonna be licked..

An hour and 20 minutes in length, but English Without Tears at times feels a lot longer. It has its moments (don't miss the caricaturist near the start, and the Aunt's crying over the poor defenceless murdered Thrush..) but gets dull at times. It is worth it to stay tuned to the end though. 7/10

I first saw this a couple of years ago.I found it difficult to concentrate on it,it was that dull.On tv short time ago.I made another effort to watch it.Stayed the course but is still dreadfully dull.